Hawkmaiden (22 page)

“The what?”

“Master Minalan and his apprentices used magic to raise an earthen wall and ditch across the low pass,” explained Gareth.  Dara understood what he was talking about now – the strange new construction she could see from Matten’s Helm.  Frightful just didn’t have the understanding to know what was going on.  “That dike and the new tower will help protect us from men like the Warbird.  But Tyndal and Rondal are both working on and they just about hate the sight of each other,” he added, amused.  He stopped in front of the booth.  It looked rather sparse, compared to its nearby competitors.

“Not much to look at now,” admitted Gareth, sheepishly, “but Master Banamor thinks that there’s a real possibility Sevendor could become as famed for magic as Gilmora is for cotton.  Especially now that the Snow That Never Melted happened.  From what I can tell, all this white stone makes it ridiculously easy to do magic here, now.  That’s going to attract a lot of wizards.”

“It is?” Dara asked, curious.

“It already has,” nodded the skinny youth, solemnly.  “There have been all manner of footwizards and magi who have come to the Castle.  Enough so that two new inns are being planned.”

“Inns?  Here in Sevendor?”  That was unheard of. 
No one
came to Sevendor.  It wasn’t on the way to anyplace else, and there was really no reason to come here.  Only, now there
was
a reason to come, Dara figured, so she decided an inn or two wasn’t a bad idea.  From what her father and Uncle Keram had told her, inns were dens of wickedness.  She hadn’t asked them to elaborate, yet, but she suspected some of the things that went on there, from the hushed tones they took.

“Not just inns, but all sorts of other things,” promised Gareth.  “Magelord Minalan has invested a lot of money in this valley.  Probably more than it’s worth – no offense – but he wants to make it better.  With magic.  He’s already starting to build a mill pond so you don’t have to go outside of the domain to grind your grain.”

“We use our own grinding stone,” Dara pointed out.  “The boys take turns with the crank.  But we don’t eat as much bread as the villeins.”  A mill wasn’t that impressive, to a Westwoodman.  But Dara did have to admit to herself that it would be a boon for the peasants.  “And what does magic have anything to do with a mill, anyway?”

“They’re using magic to build it.  I’m sure they’ll use magic to run it somehow – not really my field of study.  But the wizards and magi will be coming.  Especially once the Magic Fair is held.”  He stopped and looked at her searchingly, which startled Dara.  “How has the bilocation been going?” he asked, quietly.

“I . . . I’ve been practicing.  I’m getting pretty good at it.  I can do it in flight, now.”

“That’s impressive,” Gareth nodded.  “Is the change in perspective hard to contend with?”

“It takes getting used to,” she said, suddenly grateful at the opportunity to discuss the matter with someone – anyone.  Keeping the secret was difficult, but the hardest part was not being able to talk about it to other people.  “When you’re that far up in the air and you look down, you see the whole world differently.  Not just from up high, which is bad enough – believe me, I know – but you see it differently.  You see and notice different things.  It’s . . . strange.”

“That’s magic,” chuckled the mage, picking at his mantle.  “Have you been able to manage it with other animals?”

“
Other
. . . animals?” Dara asked, confused.  “What do you mean?”

“Few Beastmasters use only one animal.  In fact, from what I’ve read, most of their study involves learning how to inhabit many different kinds of animals.  Each one is a different kind of challenge.  It’s supposed to get easier with practice, but it takes years to learn how to do it well.”

“I’d never thought about that,” Dara admitted.  “Uh, Gareth?  Can I beg a boon and ask that you not mention my . . . my bilocation to anyone just yet?” she asked.  “Not while I’m still practicing, at least.”

“Well, sure,” agreed Gareth, reluctantly.  “Although I don’t know what’s so bad about it.  Beastmastery is a great Talent to have.  And it may lead to more.”

“That’s why.  Right now it’s taking everything I can do to train Frightful.  The bilocation has helped that, but while I’m learning that
and
falconry, well, it’s just easier not to complicate things.”

“And that way no one knows you’re using your Talent to train your bird,” Gareth guessed.  “They just think you’re a really,
really
good falconer.”

Dara blushed.  She hadn’t thought of it that way.  “Something like that.  I’m just already the redheaded freak of nature, running around in the Westwood with my pet bird and not doing proper things like needlework and looking at boys.  Only a few people even know I have Talent.  It’s just easier to contend with it without everyone staring at me.  Even more.”

“Your secret is safe with me, Dara of Westwood,” Gareth grinned.  “I don’t think—”

Dara never learned what Gareth didn’t think, because at that moment a ruckus was raised nearby.  Angry shouts and snarls, the sound of men arguing.  Immediately the crowd parted, as it does when tempers flare and fists might fly, and the heads of all turned toward the noise. 

Three men – a Bovali man and two native Sevendori, Dara noted – were having an argument, and it did, indeed, look as if it would come to blows.  It was hard to piece together from the shouts, and was made worse by the Bovali man’s western accent, but it was clear that the Sevendori felt the Bovali man had cheated them, somehow.  A goat was involved. 

But the acrimony seemed to spark some resentment among the rest of the crowd.  Dara noticed the native Sevendori, particularly those from the hamlets of Genly and Gurisham, seemed eager to find a reason to fight with the Bovali immigrants. 

The Bovali in the market, on the other hand, were just as quick to come to the aid of their countryman.  Worse, the Bovali seemed to have an awful lot of long knives and other weaponry about them.  Sevendori peasants did not carry arms – such a thing was an affront to the nobility – but the Bovali had fought for their lives escaping their homeland, Dara had heard, and the habit of being armed was a hard one for them to break.

As tempers rose and the crowd pressed in, segregating into two sides around the arguing men, Dara realized with horror that she might just be in the middle of the first violent riot in recent Sevendori history.

“Stay behind me,” Gareth warned, although how the skinny, failed warmage expected to protect Dara was uncertain.  The shouting was getting louder and louder, and another Bovali man jumped in to defend his fellow.  The Sevendori pushed.  A fist was drawn back.  The crowd held its breath, waiting for the inevitable fight to begin.

“HOLD!” came a bellow from the rear of the crowd.  The shout was so strong and so commanding that everyone did as they were told – they halted, and looked around.

A large man with a wide face and a new-made mantle strode into the center of the altercation.  Railan the Steady, Dara recognized, the former Yeoman of Sevendor Village.  Now the Yeoman of Genly Hamlet.  He had a fierce look in his eyes as he put a hand on a shoulder of two combatants and pushed them apart.

“Are you mad?” shouted the village leader.  “Will you bring the wrath of the Spellmonger down on us all?” he demanded of the Sevendori from his new village.  Railan had been one of the leading voices in the vale for years, she knew, and had used his influence to quietly combat Sir Erantal’s excesses.  Dara would have thought the man would have welcomed his replacement, but as it had led to his dispossession and demotion, she supposed she could see why he might not see the Magelord in an entirely positive light. 

“The wrath of the Spellmonger?” one of the Bovali men asked.  “We don’t need Master Min to settle our affairs for us!  It’s the wrath of the Bovali you should fear!”

“Enough of that talk!” barked another man, an older Bovali with a dark green mantle and a thick beard.  “We’re here to trade, not fight.  It’s no one’s wrath you should fear, it’s the loss of coin.  Is there no proper marketwarden to sort this out?”

“In our time we did not need such things to trade,” Railan the Steady shot back.  “We could trust that it could be done with decency and fairness.”

“We saw what you had to trade when we got here, mate,” a Bovali accent called from the crowd.  “It don’t take much decency to trade a handful of sticks for a handful of rocks!” The jibe sparked a ripple of laughter among the Bovali.  The Sevendori peasants took offense to the joke.

“And now we pay thrice the value of a single egg, thanks to you lot!” growled one of the Sevendori combatants, angrily. 

“And thrice the value of your labor, you lazy sods!” came another Bovali retort. 

“ENOUGH!” shouted Railan, angrily.  “Have you no appreciation for the danger we’re in? Our land lies under the rule of a wizard and is cursed by the very gods.  This Snow That Never Melted is a sign!”

“Yeah, a sign we’re all going to be bloody rich,” Gareth whispered to Dara.  “Doesn’t that sodfoot realize that yet?”  She was a bit shocked at his temerity, openly criticizing an elder – and a man of rank - that way, but she was also a little thrilled to be taken into his confidence, like an adult.  It emboldened Dara to offer her own opinion.

“He’s just plowed under because he’s now the leader of Genly, and he has to watch his old home turn into a proper village. He was once the third most important man in Sevendor domain,” she pointed out, in a whisper.  “Now he’s just the most important man in Genly.”

The insults and japes between the two parties had continued, airing a lot of grievances on both sides along the way.  If Dara had to learn about the folk of Sevendor for the first time from hearing the lively voicing of differences, she would have discovered that the Bovali were dirty cowherders, that the Sevendori were lazy villeins, that the Bovali were arrogant heathens from the Wilderlands, that the Sevendori were unmanly dullards too ignorant to realize the sun was shining, that the Bovali were scheming drunkards intent on destroying the vale . . . as the insults flew, they got more personal and more profane.

As frightening as it was to Dara, knowing violence could break out at any time, it was also terribly exciting to witness.  As a Westwoodman she felt a bit neutral in the debate.  Indeed, the Westwood folk generally agreed with many of the Bovali’s criticisms of the vale folk – they’d been making the same observations for years.

But she had to admit that the Sevendori peasants were just as apt about their descriptions of the newcomers.  As a Westwoodman she might agree with the Bovali assessment of the native peasants, but as a Sevendori she also could sympathize with the villeins. 

The Bovali had changed the nature of the vale since they’d arrived.  The economy, the politics, the language, the food had all transformed within a short time.  They had all hated Sir Erantal’s corrupt reign and had always looked forward to its inevitable end . . . but they hadn’t anticipated the upheaval it brought, and they were scared.  A new lord would have been difficult enough for the simple peasants to contend with.  A new lord who was also a wizard was disconcerting, and a new wizard lord who came with an army of strangers made the changes terrifying. 

“You certainly look better fed now than when I first saw you!” the Bovali man in the green cloak was barking at Railan.  The original combatants had faded into the crowd, at this point, as leaders among the two parties took it upon themselves to argue on behalf of their folk.  “If this land is cursed, it’s cursed with plenty!”

“Honest hunger is better, in the eyes of the gods, than a plenty purchased with sorcery!” Railan countered.

“Sorcery? Master Min paid good coin for that fare,” bragged the Bovali man – who Gareth told her was named Rollo, a leader of some importance among the Bovali.  “Or beat it out of the Warbird’s whelp.  But he’s not used a spell to conjure it, from the way he complains of the cost!”

“And how long until that resentment turns to spite?” asked Railan, appealing to the crowd as much to Rollo.  “How long until the wizard comes down out of his keep and turns his wrath on us?”

“Why would you give him reason to?” demanded Rollo.  “Master Min is a fair man, more than most, and a better lord than you lot deserve.  First thing he did when he got here was tear up the stocks – I don’t recall you being upset by that.  He’s been nothing but openhanded.”

“At what price?” countered Railan.  “What have we lost in return for this . . . generosity?”

“Poverty?” suggested Dara, boldly and loudly, before she realized her mouth was moving.  Her high, feminine voice cut through the noise of the debate like a knife, and every head turned to stare at her. 

She immediately regretted speaking.  But once her lips began moving, however, they seemed to take on a life of their own.  Ignoring her station, youth, and gender, her lips boldly dragged her into the attention of the entire marketplace. 

“Fear? Corruption?  Injustice? Starvation? Your old threadbare cloak?” she added, a bit sarcastically, knowing that Railan had considered his sturdy old mantle a badge of his position . . . yet he had tossed it away for the one the Spellmonger had gifted him with quickly enough.

That brought a titter of derisive laughter from both sides of the crowd.  And earned Dara a deadly look from Railan the steady.

“Impudent girl!” he spat.  “What does a child of the Westwood know about the affairs beyond the chasm?”